The former heads of Canadian and American espionage agencies are urging the nations in the Five Eyes intelligence partnership to keep working together to mitigate cyber threats — even as U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to lift some sanctions on private sector dealings with Russia raises questions about what could happen to secret information shared with the United States.

But both Richard Fadden, former director of CSIS, and retired General Michael Hayden, former head of the NSA and CIA in the U.S., said they weren’t terribly worried about any potential risks associated with sharing secret information with the U.S.

“I understand the theoretical possibility, but I think that’s a manageable possibility,” said Hayden, asked whether Five Eyes partners should worry about the risk of information leaking to Russia. “Look — we’re friends with India and Pakistan, and we share information with both. If we can manage that, we can manage this.”

Fadden stressed that sanctions are always stronger when they’re imposed in coordination with other countries.

“I personally think it would be wrong for one country individually to change the sanctions, but we are each sovereign and can decide what we are going to do,” said Fadden.

Both Fadden and Hayden were speaking today on cyber security at the Disaster Proofing Canada forum, co-hosted by Carleton University and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. The forum aims to bring together policy-makers and industry experts to discuss how best to make sure Canada is prepared both for physical and cyber disasters.

Peter Kent and James Bezan, the Conservative Party’s respective foreign affairs and defence critics, issued a joint statement Thursday afternoon calling for the government to maintain and strengthen Canada’s sanctions against Russia.

“The Liberals should also demonstrate their willingness to stand up to he illegal actions of the Putin regime by following through on their election promises to implement sanctions against corrupt foreign officials,” they wrote. “The sanctions put in place by our previous Conservative government have been effective and until the illegal occupation and annexation ends, they should be maintained and strengthened.”

The comments come on the heels of an announcement Wednesday that the government has asked the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s signals intelligence agency, to conduct and make public an assessment of how secure political parties and Elections Canada are from hacking.

Just last month, American intelligence officials released a declassified report into the attempts by Russia to influence the 2016 election in favour of Donald Trump.

In that report, officials wrote that American allies will be the next targets of such attempts, and already officials in Europe are taking steps to try to limit efforts to flood electorates in France and Germany with fake news designed to mobilize voters behind candidates and parties perceived as being more friendly to Russia.

“I think your government is just taking the prudent step,” said Hayden. “The Russians have shown the track record to not just steal data — which I freely admit is an accepted international practice — but then to use the data to corrupt another country’s political process.”

Hayden also stressed that discussions on how best to mitigate cyber threats, particularly from Russia, need to also involve a nuanced understanding of what factors are driving Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Putin knows he’s governing a second-rate power. He’s sitting over here at the kiddie table and he really wants to sit at the big people table. His chair is never going to fit, so he has a plan. He’s going to saw the legs off the big table so that his kiddie chair fits.

“So what is he doing? He’s trying to corrupt and collapse the European Union. He’s trying to fracture NATO. He’s trying to feed populist parties in Western Europe, and he’s trying to corrupt confidence in our most precious entity — our democratic political processes. He’s trying to bring us down to his level.”

The question that remains is whether Putin can win. The answer, Hayden said, is entirely up to us.